Search results
Results from the WOW.Com Content Network
The number of elements in an array can be determined either by evaluating the array in scalar context or with the help of the $# sigil. The latter gives the index of the last element in the array, not the number of elements. The expressions scalar(@array) and ($#array + 1) are equivalent.
The loop control keywords are treated as expressions in Perl, not as statements like in C or Java. The next keyword jumps directly to the end of the current iteration of the loop. This usually causes the next iteration of the loop to be started, but the continue block and loop condition are evaluated first.
Perl 5 has built-in, language-level support for associative arrays. Modern Perl refers to associative arrays as hashes; the term associative array is found in older documentation but is considered somewhat archaic. Perl 5 hashes are flat: keys are strings and values are scalars.
The interpreter has an object-oriented architecture. All of the elements of the Perl language—scalars, arrays, hashes, coderefs, file handles—are represented in the interpreter by C structs. Operations on these structs are defined by a large collection of macros, typedefs, and functions; these constitute the Perl C API.
In Perl, foreach (which is equivalent to the shorter for) can be used to traverse elements of a list. The expression which denotes the collection to loop over is evaluated in list-context and each item of the resulting list is, in turn, aliased to the loop variable.
#!/usr/bin/perl – called the "shebang line", after the hash symbol (#) and ! (bang) at the beginning of the line. It is also known as the interpreter directive. # – the number sign, also called the hash symbol. In Perl, the # indicates the start of a comment. It instructs perl to ignore the rest of the line and not execute it as script code.
Perl Data Language (abbreviated PDL) is a set of free software array programming extensions to the Perl programming language. PDL extends the data structures built into Perl, to include large multidimensional arrays , and adds functionality to manipulate those arrays as vector objects.
XS is a Perl foreign function interface through which a program can call a C or C++ subroutine. XS or xsub is an abbreviation of "eXtendable Subroutine". XS also refers to a glue language for specifying calling interfaces supporting such interfaces (see below).